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Saturday, March 21, 2009

Considering I'm someone who rarely bakes, there's been kind of a bread-baking frenzy going on around here for months. Who knows how I got fixated on whole wheat bread machine recipes, but I spent weeks experimenting to come up with 100% Whole Wheat Bread with Oats, Bran and Flax Seed. Once I was happy with that recipe, I wanted to try making whole wheat bread with cracked wheat, similar to Jack Spratt Bread, a type of sprouted wheat bread made in Utah that I'm very fond of.

My first few tries were pretty dismal (although the construction workers happily ate them with no complaints.) Even when I soaked the cracked wheat, I felt like it was too hard in the finished bread, so finally I hit on the idea of using bulgur wheat, a type of parboiled cracked wheat (often used to make tabbouli.) It was a success; the bulgur added a nice texture to the bread, without being too hard to chew. Perhaps the funniest part of the whole story is that when I was a kid, bulgur was trendy in Utah and my mom used to sneak it into all kinds of foods. It wasn't well-received by the kids in the family, and when mom presented something at the table we'd ask "Is there bulgur in that?" Now here I am years later deliberately adding it to my bread!

Soak 1/2 cup bulgur wheat in 2/3 cup boiling water for one hour, or longer if all the water is not absorbed. (I wish I could tell you it was fine to soak for less than an hour, but in my experiments, longer soaking was definitely better.)

Combine all dry ingredients in a plastic bowl, stir together, then add soaked bulgur and mix well with a fork.

Stir together olive oil, agave nectar, and brown sugar, then measure 1 cup warm water stir into the mixture.

Remember that in the bread machine the ingredients should form a ball after the first mixing is finished. If that doesn't happen, add a bit more flour if too dry or a bit more water if too wet.

Follow directions for your bread machine for the order to add ingredients. In my Oster Bread Machine I put the liquid in first, followed by the dry ingredients I mixed in the bowl. Then I make a small well in the flour and put the yeast in that. I used the whole wheat setting on the machine.

Watch bread while it goes through the first mixing cycle, and if it doesn't form a ball you may need to add more flour or water, a little bit at a time. The dough should make a firm ball and be only slightly sticky. (I made this bread several times and usually added a few teaspoons of extra water, but it depends on the humidity where you live and how carefully you measure ingredients.)

For the photos of bread for this post, I took the dough out of the machine right before the final rise and gently folded the sides under to make a loaf with a smooth top. When I didn't do that, I still had a tasty bread but the top wasn't as well-shaped. (You can also remove the bread paddle right before the final rise, a tip I learned from my favorite gluten-free baking expert, Karina.)

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26 comments:

I've never used a bread machine before...but make mine by hand. I love the idea of using bulghar in the bread....I shall see what I can adapt. Great recipe. I love coming here and seeing what you have made. How is everything? Baking bread is gooooood therapy!

Trish, I agree, baking bread is good therapy. I needed it today. I think I'm having kind of a delayed reaction to my stepmother's death. Really feeling sad today, but I'll be okay. Thanks for your concern.

KalynThanks for all your work getting these recipes perfect for your followers. I, too, still have sad days even though I lost my mom over three years ago. I just became a grandmother three weeks ago (would have been my mother's first GREAT grandchild), and I had such a hard time realizing that I couldn't call her to tell her the great news. Hopefully you will have only wonderful memories of her to get you through this. Your fans are thinking of you. Hugs.

Thanks for the kind thoughts everyone. I'll be fine, just going through the process of realizing that my stepmother is really gone. Would love to hear from someone who makes this without a bread machine. (I'm clueless about how that would work, but I did love the bulgur in the bread!)

Mindy, do you mean plastic as opposed to glass or metal? If so, any of those will work. If you mean why do I mix before adding to the bread machine, I guess it's just to make sure all the ingredients are well-combined. Probably not essential, but since there are so many extra ingredients besides flour, I'm just being careful.

One of these days I'll make room in my kitchen for a bread machine. I don't eat bread much anymore, but I still love baking it from time to time. The machine would probably mean I'd bake a bit more often.

I love this recipe, and the story reminds me of how my mom used to sneak bran into everything-- even our pizza crusts had bran in them! But now I love it. I was wondering what kind of bread maker you use? I like to go for the tried and true before I buy.

Ellie, I have an Oster Bread Machine. There's a link in the post to the machine on Amazon.com, where you can see more about it. There are a lot of good bread machines, but I like the way this one makes a small horizontal loaf. I've had it for a while, but they don't seem to have changed the model that much so it must be popular.

Betty the dough enhancer I have contains whey, soy milk, soy lecithin, modified corn starch, vitamin C powder and citric acid. You could try googling to see if you can find a recipe with the proportions. Other than that, I don't know what to substitute.

On south beach I missed bread so I purchased a machine at Goodwill and purchased the ingredients and made a loaf. I did not find dough enhancer so left it out. The bread is marvelous. Light, stays together when sliced, and good flavor. Thank you for your recipes. I also made the mock chicken enchiladas. My husband declared he was taking leftovers for lunch tomorrow. I bought the Verde sauce (2 10oz cans)and whole chilies in super Walmart.

Thanks for joining the conversation! I love hearing from readers and even though I can't always reply to every comment, I will always answer specific questions on a recipe as soon as possible. Sometimes I'm answering by iPhone, so my replies may be short!

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